samedi 21 janvier 2017

Trump hasn't changed, lies about his inauguration crowd size

Quote:

On his first full day in office, President Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agencys headquarters to express his gratitude for the intelligence community, which he had repeatedly railed against and recently likened to Nazis.

What Trump delivered Saturday was a campaign-style, stream-of-consciousness airing of grievances  at the Senate for delaying confirmation of his nominees; at critics for questioning whether he is smart and vigorous; and at journalists, whom he called the most dishonest human beings on earth and accused of lying about the size of his inauguration crowd.

Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. It did not. Trump accused television networks of showing an empty field and reporting that he drew just 250,000 people to witness Fridays ceremony.

It looked like a million, a million and a half people, Trump said, falsely claiming that his crowd went all the way back to the Washington Monument.

During his 2009 inaugural address, President Obamas crowd extended that far, and photos from that day show a crowd clearly much larger than the one that showed up for Trump.

Its a lie, Trump said of the crowd estimates for Fridays event. We caught [the media]. We caught them in a beauty.

Well, what were you expecting? Did you somehow think that the Donald Trump of the long, bitter campaign of 2016 would be miraculously transformed in the Washington rain, emerging as a kinder, gentler man, ready to serve as healer of the nation and humble steward of the free world? Because if you did, you were sorely disappointed.

Of course he didnt change. The naive thought he might shift a year ago, when he became the Republican frontrunner, or in the summer, when he became that partys nominee, or in November, when he won the election. And some, finally, clung to the hope that he would pivot, undergoing a metamorphosis as he placed his hand on the Bible and took the oath to become Americas 45th president. But they were wrong.